New York Firm Buys Startup Email Copilot's Assets, Team Moves to Seismic

San Diego startup Email Copilot has been acquired by New York-based Return Path, an email data software company, for an undisclosed amount. The Email Copilot team, however, isn’t leaving San Diego.

Although Return Path said it acquired all of Email Copilot (including technical assets and an existing book of business), Email Copilot’s co-founder and CEO, Al Bsharah, said the executive team will join forces with San Diego’s own growing software firm, Seismic.

“It’s been a bit of a tricky acquisition with so many parties involved, but it’s a huge win for everyone,” Bsharah said in an email. “The team gets to stay here at home and jump onboard with a company that’s growing incredibly quickly.”

Email Copilot developed visualization, monitoring, reporting and analysis technology of email deliverability data. The startup’s executive team will come in handy for Seismic, a software firm that generates marketing collateral for sales teams.

Seismic, founded in 2010, is a rapidly growing firm in San Diego that recently moved to a bigger office in Del Mar Heights. The company, which employed 200 as of September, just received a $40 million Series C in May.

The trio will be working on Seismic’s engineering team, bolstering the product’s reporting, data analytics, and machine-learning functionalities, according to Jason Fidler, a spokesman for Seismic.

Email Copilot was formerly known as Embarke, and had been venture backed by Anthem Ventures, La Costa Investment Group, Promus Ventures, Right Side Capital Group, Social Leverage, along with angels Howard Lindzon, Eric Otterson, Steve Macbeth and Analytics Ventures.

Navid Alipour, managing partner at Analytics Ventures, said he believes Email Copilot's acquisition and move to Seismic is a sign that the local technology community is growing up.

“This happens in San Francisco all the time,” Navid said in an email. “Companies get acquired by faster growing ones based on relationships and a mature ecosystem. This deal represents a maturing ecosystem (in San Diego).”